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What the Hell is Study Hacks?

It occured to me recently that I should write a short post that explains what Study Hacks is all about — something I can point people to when they stumble, for the first time, into our quirky little world of note-taking strategies and rants about focus. So here we go…

The purpose of Study Hacks is clear: to help students succeed without stress.

My philosophy for achieving this goal can be reduced to three simple rules:

Do fewer things.

Do them better.

Know why you’re doing them.

All of the important advice on this site circles back to these same three themes. Folks, I’ve been obsessing over this stuff for years. Trust me, this is what works.

Time to get over your irritation with business majors. The world needs all types.
I love your blog, read it every day and glean a ton of useful and practical advice from it. Plus, I have both of your books and Straight A rocks!
Signed,
A business major

By the way, how *does* one get a 3.9 without once impressing the professor? Surely if you’re getting As, and the professor has standards, you’re producing something insightful or exceeding expectations?

I know everyone’s on your case about ‘disliking’ business majors, but I have to agree it shouldn’t be a fall-back major for students who don’t know what else to take.
That being said, as a business major planning to become a professional accountant, if I were to take a different major I would definitely be putting myself at a disadvantage since ALL of the courses required to obtain a designation will be complete upon my graduation. If I took a different major I would still be eligible for designation; however, it would take me many more years to complete.

Hey Cal,
I am a college student in Taiwan. Just wanting to let you know how much I’ve benefited from your site: I got a 4.0 last semester, in fact I was #2 in my department; I am currently participating in two clubs one is Model UN and the other is World Volunteer Service. I am totally not a socially isolated nerd. I really appreciate your blog and your book!! When will you publish your third book?

Hi, I’m a struggling fourteen year old. I’m smart, but I just CAN’T find the determination to apply myself to school. I cruise through my classes, making straight 90’s and not really giving a damn. I’m in all honors, etc. etc, but my heart isn’t in it.

I want to major/pursue a career in computers. I haven’t quite decided which area of study I want to pursue, but it makes it so much harder sitting through a 55-minute class about the STATE OF GEORGIA knowing I’m sitting in school for 8 hours a day, but not making any progress towards my dream. I realize I need to try the best that I can in school, because grades are important for admissions to high schools/colleges, but that alone just isn’t enough incentive for me. (Shocking, I know.)

I just discovered your website this morning, by Googling “How to make school more exciting.” I like hearing what you have to say, and maybe your hacks will help me do better!

Hi, I’m a struggling fourteen year old. I’m smart, but I just CAN’T find the determination to apply myself to school. I cruise through my classes, making straight 90’s and not really giving a damn. I’m in all honors, etc. etc, but my heart isn’t in it.

This is pretty common. There are two things that help. First, launch a campaign to master the technical skills of being a student. Your goal should be to streamline your efforts to the point where there’s barely a second of wasted, in efficient pseudo-work. This will make the schoolwork less a burden. (A good place to get started is in my archives.)

Second, resist at all costs building up a busy extracurricular schedule full of things you think you should be doing. This is a sure path to deep procrastination and burnout. Find something you can start/join right now that’s related to coputers. And start poring your extracurricular attention into that.

I decided last night around midnight that that was sort of what I wanted to do. I realized my problem was that life in general is a bore, and that I needed more fun in my life.

So, I’ve started keeping a notebook, journaling my day’s events, and the general idea is to increase fun, and motivation as a result.

I’ve been toying with the idea of making it into a blog, (written in HTML), so that I can practice my web design skills and continue my “mission” at the same time. Its been really hard, not having friends around, I moved from New Jersey to Atlanta about a year ago and I don’t have any REAL friends down here in Georgia.

Believe it or not, the motivation for my sudden action was a comedy routine.

If you haven’t seen “If I”, by Demetri Martin, I strongly encourage you to watch it. It’s the story of the life of a chronic overachiever, where his desire to succeed ends up becoming his downfall. At times it is sad, and others its downright hilarious.

Thanks a lot for the great tips here on your site, I’ll start reading as soon as I get home. I’m in Language Arts, supposed to be researching for a reasearch paper I have to write. I don’t even know what to write it ON.

Hey there. As a current undergrad at your alma mater, I’m finding your blog extremely helpful for getting my life back under control. I had a rather difficult fall semester that consisted of me taking a physics class for which I was not well prepared (8.012) and ended up failing despite every vain effort to keep up. Nowadays, after stumbling upon your blog, I’ve slowly seen an increase in my productivity and mental attitude. Thanks!

Hi cal, I’m a first year english literature and language student who’s just come across your inspiratonal ‘give yourself a good pep talk’ site ! Thankyou! Ive just had some pretty crummy ( that’s rubbish to you americans….I’m english by the way!) results for last semester.My biggest problem is time mangagement skills, mother of three children..just given job up to study full time, and feeling a little out of touch with academic learning at the moment. Anyway your simple, but very effective words of wisdom have been very helpful this morning…. so thankyou, I’ll make sure to look at the site regularly.
All the best with all your ventures,
Penelope

y biggest problem is time mangagement skills, mother of three children..just given job up to study full time, and feeling a little out of touch with academic learning at the moment. Anyway your simple, but very effective words of wisdom have been very helpful this morning…. so thankyou, I’ll make sure to look at the site regularly.

Penelope, a professor I had here at MIT told me the story of having her first child while a graduate student. She claims that it actually improved her performance (evidenced, I guess, by her professorship at MIT). The key for her was this realization that her time was limited — her day now only offering a small number of unambiguously “open” slots. So she started to attack those slots with intensity, focusing on the absolutely most important steps toward her academic goals.

In other words, viewed the right day, your unique constraints as a mother might help you fall into the schedule of intense attacks that many students struggle with.

I am a living example that the methods of Study Hacks works!! I’m a freshman on my spring semester of college now. Fall semester was a disaster. I was doing psuedo-work, I procrastinated— everything I was doing was extremely wrong! So, I basically crashed and burned during Fall semester finals. So, over christmas break, I found this website and ready EVERY single article. I’ve been applying basically all these methods. And, I got rid of Facebook (distractions). Now, I’m getting A’s in every one of my courses plus I am completely stress free!!!
I love it! Thank you Cal Newport!

Hello-
I read your book “How To Become a High School Superstar,” and I still feel the book’s advice was too vague for me. I’m a high school junior that has volunteered at numerous organizations for the city (library, festivals, museums), yet I still feel I lack some important connections. What would your advice be, for say, getting involved with my city’s local government?

Cal,
As a first generations college student I wish I would have known about this sight when I was first starting out in school. It would have saved me a few headaches. Would you mind if I cited you and a few of your ideas for my blog for first generation college students?

I dig this article – however, I am a student currently enrolled and my biggest folly is that I DO want to do a million things all at once… and I DO them… all at once. I find that my biggest hurdle is that I feel like I don’t have enough TIME to do it all (not in daily life, but in life in general) Being a creative writing major, I took up taking classes for graphic design (wanted to do my minor in digital media at my university, but found that the scheduled classes there were WAY out of wack to be easily integrated into my already full schedule of 5 classes a semester PLUS my full-time office job). Plus I volunteer at two separate organizations. I guess my question is, when would you pass judgement that one would be “spreading yourself too thin?”

I see a business major and think to myself, “I pick physics over your text book any day:)”

Nice one. I can’t understands how anybody can choose business over something practical. And maybe even interesting to them. I actually like entrepreneurs, but I don’t like to study it in uni. I rather be street educated than a business major.

I appreciate the thought that life can be done simpler. How would you recommend fighting the urge to overcomplicate because you want to be the individual who does a million things while maintaining a 3.9? As someone who used to be the “3.9-er” who no longer has the ability to do so, I would like some advice on this.

There are different types of learning and you don’t even address this. Some people learn visually, some by ear, some by movement, and some are what are called “read-write”. I think there is a fourth. All I know is that I have to recopy my notes after class and put notes from my reading in with it. He’d tell me I was wasting my time. He’d be wrong. That’s how I (almost) aced Anatomy and Physiology.

Why didn’t I ace it? Because the professor decided to embarrass me in front of the entire class and I stopped studying. I still earned a B+.

So before you take this guy’s advice, do a little more research on learning styles or you’ll set yourself up for failure

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About Cal Newport

I'm a computer science professor who writes about the intersection of technology and society. I’m particularly interested in the impact of new technologies on our ability to perform productive work and lead satisfying lives. If you’re new to my writing, a good place to start is the about page. You can access over a decade's worth of posts in the blog archive.

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